What is the fastest way to level up my alchemy skill?

Question

Do the type of potions I make have any effect on how much experience I gain towards leveling Alchemy? Are there any ways to level Alchemy aside from making potions, and how effective are though for leveling compared to making potions?

Answer 1

I'm fairly sure discovering new effects gives you the biggest boost to your alchemy skill, but throwing together your own potions is gonna be effective, of course.

My strategy has been to go out and collect too many ingredients and then head to an alchemy table and just start throwing stuff together. Generally, I try to put ingredients that I know a lot of effects with ingredients that I know zero or one effects. This way, I have a better chance of matching something.

Eating ingredients will uncover the first effect.

Oh, and you could always train from a specialist and then kill them and recollect your gold. But that's limited to fives times per level.

This wiki is a great source: http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Alchemy

Answer 2

My Potion recipe finder generates all possible 2 and 3 ingredient recipes and lets you filter by effect and purity. You can remove items you don't have and it adjust the possibilities. It also sorts by price so the post expensive ones are first.

Answer 3

The amount of exp you receive is directly related to the amount of gold that the potion is worth.

Potions are worth more if they have more effects on them, and the effects have a larger magnitude.

For this reason, even creating a potion that has 1 positive effect and two negative effects will be worth more than a potion with just one positive effect.

Answer 4

I am a huge fan of magic regen and health regen (And any other effects I can get in) multi-effect potions, they are about 400g+ each at a minimum to sell, and they're great for leveling. Garlic and salt piles are godsends for ease of gathering and mixing with most other common ingredients.

A secret if you want to grab lots of ingredients and gold is not a major issue, fast travel between towns and hit each apothecary, do it in a circle from town to town and by the time you get back to your starting point- fresh ingredients in the first apothecary.

If you have higher level enchanting you can toss + Alchemy enchants on ring, Necklace and Circlet. I have +27 alch on all three and went from level 71- maxed alchemy in one huge batch of potion making... And I now don't bother looting most enemies because every potion sells for so much.

Answer 5

Similar to the potion recommender but with a better interface is Andrew's Skyrim Max Potion Tool which starts out assuming you have all ingredients and shows the potions ranked by cost (same as the experience benefit). However, management of ingredients is much easier: Just click on any instance of an ingredient you don't have and the whole list is updated.

This way you just prepare everything you can, clicking on ingredients as you run out.

Answer 6

You may also find The Potion Recommender useful -- it allows you to put in a list of the ingredients you have and it will recommend potions with those ingredients that provide the most XP and money.

Answer 7

Agreed with experience being proportional to potion value. I've found that making poisons out of blue mountain flowers and blue butterfly wings brings high returns, in terms of gold and alchemy skill increase.

Answer 8

If you're going at it from a role playing point of view (i.e. not using forums or calculators to help you find potions) the first thing you need to do is experiment. Do this by making combinations of three different ingredients and hope they work. The game will turn the names of ingredients that can not be combined grey to make it a little easier on you. The usefulness of this, however, is limited to the fact that if they share one attribute and can make a viable potion the game will not keep track and tell you that you have combined them already. Try and keep track of recipes you've tried so that you wont keep testing the same ingredients.

Once you feel you have found enough affects from different ingredients and are ready to bust out the gold/skill gain - just look for the potion that sells for the most. The value of the potion is directly proportionate to the amount of skill that you will gain from making it. From my experience (I haven't actually done the math but visually it appears to be accurate) even if you use the alchemy perks or enchanted armor to get a stronger potion the skill gain will be faster. That means that you gain just as fast or close to it in later levels as opposed to in early levels. On a side note - make sure the Thief Stone is activated to increase skill gain by 20%. I thought it was under the Wizard Stone but it is not.

To procure the ingredients I just fast travelled from town to town and bought them from the vendors and sold them my potions. This happens to be a fantastic way to increase speech as well.

Answer 9

Blue mountain flower, giant toe, and bear claws. Best potion I've seen. Mine currently sells for 1400

Answer 10

Dragons Tongue and Fly Amanita! Holy crap just fill your house gardens and greenhouse with the stuff and you get a boatload of them and they make potions that rake in exp. I'm level 55 alchemy and have like +30% alchemy effects atm and my potions are worth about 510 each.

Answer 11

If you have good Pickpocket you can pay for Alchemy training then steal the gold back, but around level 70 it gets hard.